This work provides an overview of dedicated soundings acquired from ozonesondes and radiosondes launched over the tropical Atlantic Ocean during the ongoing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Aerosols and Ocean Science Expedition (AEROSE) campaigns conducted in partnership with the PIRATA Northeast Extension (PNE) project onboard the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown. The AEROSE data complement is one of the most extensive collections of in situ measurements over the tropical Atlantic Ocean, conducted during boreal spring and summer over multiple years (2004, 2006-2011, and potentially beyond). Ship based sonde launches have been timed to coincide with Aqua AIRS and MetOp IASI satellite overpass times, thereby providing dedicated radiosonde observations (RAOBs) as correlative data for developments of proxy datasets to be used for pre-launch NPP/JPSS CrIMSS environmental data record (EDR) validation (see Barnet et al., this session). Among other things, the AEROSE data are unique in their range of marine meteorological phenomena germane to the satellite missions in question, including dust and smoke outflows from Africa, the Saharan air layer (SAL) and tropical water vapor distribution, and tropospheric ozone dynamics. In the current work, CrIMSS proxy data from the most recent 2010 and 2011 AEROSE campaigns are highlighted.